It's His Day
by Sally Mn
Summary: Daniel's birthdays throughout the years...


**It's His Day**

He doesn't mention it at the time - given everything that happened, he doesn't even think of it - but Daniel actually opens the Stargate three days before his birthday.

When he does recall it later, he decides that as a present to himself it definitely beats booze.

**~oOo~**

On the first postGate birthday, his new family throws a party. Daniel and Sha're slip off early and leave pretty much all of Abydos drinking and eating and celebrating their undreamed-of luck.

It is their last night alone, before the Gate opens again and the dream turns to nightmare. It is also the last birthday for a long time where he is somewhere he can call... 'home'.

**~oOo~**

On the second postGate birthday, he is guest of honor at a celebration on a planet rich in beauty, history, minerals and relics... but rather bereft of any residents who can actually be called _human._ On the other hand, the sentient cactii are both friendly and surprisingly generous. SG-1 stumble home the next day, laden with enough artifacts to keep the birthday boy happy for at least a month... or at least until the biggest explodes in the gateroom, showering the place in living and somewhat intoxicating sparkles for three weeks.

**~oOo~**

On the third postGate birthday, he is with his team on PJF880 (or, as the Marines call it, ScrewThisPlace) negotiating the rescue of SG-3 from pseudo-Mayan worshippers of a long-dead god of death. That night, they all have chicken MREs (tasting more like carefully boiled chickenfeed) and Jack produces a candle and sticks it in a power bar.

The memory of 'Happy Birthday' mangled by grateful and tone-deaf jarheads is a gift in itself, but Daniel keeps that to himself.

**~oOo~**

On the fourth postGate birthday, he is in the infirmary. Again. Liquid hamburgers and intravenous infusions are all the feast he was allowed. But his teammates bring balloons, and plenty of people turn up with cards, flowers, and a mountain of chocolate he can't eat.

Daniel learned as a child that it is the thought that counts anyway. And the chocolate comes in handy later on for offworld negotiations. Or bribing Janet's nurses. Or somewhat stale two-in-the-morning comfort food.

**~oOo~**

On the fifth postGate birthday, Daniel is on an alien spacecraft trying and failing to communicate with the xenoinsectoids who think that humans - or at least, Daniel, SG-11, SG-12 and three _other_ civilian scientists - are _their_ birthday feast, and genuinely can't comprehend why dinner is trying to escape.

And anyway, the rest of SG-1 are in other parts of the galaxy again, scattered and separate as they are so often this year. As he tells himself several times that day,_ not_ dying will be present enough, anyway.

**~oOo~**

But on the sixth postGate birthday, he has. Died, that is. His best friend, his team, his fellow scientists, hell half the base get blind drunk in his honor. The Ascended who had once been Daniel watches them all from a place unimaginably light and unimaginably far away...

**~oOo~**

And on the seventh postGate birthday, a man with no name falls to earth not far from the ancient stone circle just outside crumbling ruins. The nomads that live there give him clothes, food, a bed and a name.

These gifts mean more to him then - and later - than he ever knows how to say.

And when, months later, the people from a place called Earth arrive, they look at him like _their _birthdays have all come at once.

**~oOo~**

On his eighth postGate birthday, Daniel is the guest of a city of somewhat Wiccanesque aliens, socially enlighened if militarily lacking; many of them are more than willing to make him presents of themselves. All five sexes, all more than willing, all at once.

Sam and Teal'c don't help by suggesting to their new General that in future, Daniel should swap his BDUs for wrapping paper. It is, after all, the fifth proposed gift exchange of this type since descending...

**~oOo~**

On the ninth postGate birthday, three Generals and a President give up, give in to him, give their approval, and give him the trip to Atlantis. It doesn't quite work out - how not-unusual is that? he asks himself - but purple cake smelling of seaweed and made from an old Alteran recipe (Elizabeth tells him not to question the semi-floral main ingredients, and she _means _it), and moonshine made by the best scientific minds in two galaxies definitely taste better when looking out over the city.

**~oOo~**

On the tenth postGate birthday, he is himself a present, twice over; Vala accidentally bets him against an Ancient artifact (that in any case turns out to be a fake) and loses him to... their old less-than-friend Aris Boch. Both she _and _Daniel are lucky that the bounty hunter happens to owe Master Bra'tac (it is a long story, the old Jaffa says simply), who claims an unbirthday present of one archeologist and solemnly gives him to Jack O'Neill and the IOA as part of the new Tau'ri-Jaffa treaties.

Jack - and SG-1 - and the IOA - insist on having said ownership in writing this time in all of the twenty-six-plus languages their gift knows, just for the record when the eleventh postGate birthday rolls around...

**- the end -**


End file.
